The Secret of Success by Edgerton R. Young

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 19, 1903

The Secret of Success

By Edgerton R. Young

“What has been the secret of your marvelous success in India?” was asked not long ago of a fair, delicate young lady missionary, who had been most marvelously owned of God in the conversion of many hundreds of once degraded, benighted Telugus. Her answer is worthy of remembrance by all who are toiling for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ at home as well as abroad. Modestly she replied, but in a way that thrilled all who heard her:—

“I never let the spiritual wants of others get between my own soul’s personal obligations to Christ. I never let my missionary duties, heavy and many though they are, rob me of the time devoted to private devotions and communion with Christ through prayer and his Word. I found it better to limit my time for meals and sleep, rather than the time consecrated to personal communion with God alone. If a sick Hindut came to see me when at prayer, I finished my devotions as usual, and ever felt that I was so much the better prepared to prescribe more wisely for the disease; and in this I have never been mistaken.”

These are words worthy of being pondered over by us all. In these active days, when there is so much fuss and flutter, and we seem to be so busy amid the multitudinous duties of life that come to us, we can not be too careful in guarding our own soul’s interest, and the time when we can go apart from the world and commune alone with him who is the source of our strength, and our God.—Edgerton R. Young, in “The Apostle of the North.”